The lawyer for detained Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya has warned that he fears for his client’s life after seeing him severely beaten during a prison visit at Israel’s Rakefet interrogation facility.
Nasser Odeh said he visited Abu Safiya last Thursday and struggled to recognise him because of the extent of his injuries. “He nearly lost consciousness several times,” Odeh told the BBC, adding that the former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza had told him he was subjected to severe violence inside the prison, particularly on the day of the visit.
Odeh said bruises covered Abu Safiya’s face, including around his eyes, neck and ears, and that visible signs of beating and torture were clear. He added that the doctor appeared exhausted, unable to breathe properly and in a severe physical, psychological and mental condition.
According to Odeh, Abu Safiya said more than five prison guards assaulted him with their hands, batons and hammers after an appeal against his detention was heard last month at Israel’s Supreme Court in Jerusalem. He said he had not received medical treatment.
“He said clearly, ‘I’m living in hell. The mind can’t imagine what I go through every day. I think someone has decided to kill me’,” Odeh told the BBC.
Abu Safiya has been detained by Israel since 27 December, 2024, when Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. The hospital had continued to function during a near-total siege, treating patients despite severe shortages of fuel, medicine and staff.
Read: ‘Torture and degrading treatment’ — The case of Dr Abu Safiya and Gaza’s broken medical system
Images circulated at the time showed Abu Safiya walking in his white doctor’s coat through the rubble towards an Israeli armoured vehicle before being taken for interrogation.
Abu Safiya is being held under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law, a discriminatory ruling which allows the occupation state to hold Palestinians for prolonged periods without charge or trial. Rights groups have repeatedly condemned the law as a tool of arbitrary detention and warned that it strips detainees of basic legal safeguards.
Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to respond to a petition calling for Abu Safiya and 13 other Palestinian doctors from Gaza to be released from detention without charge. Physicians for Human Rights Israel filed the petition in April.
On Monday, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted an opinion finding Abu Safiya’s detention arbitrary and calling for his immediate release. UN experts said his continued detention without charge or trial reflects Israel’s “systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers” and the ongoing destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.
“In light of ongoing reports of continued severe torture and the latest reports suggesting that his injuries could lead to imminent death, Israel must ensure that Dr. Abu Safiya has access to immediate and adequate medical care,” the experts warned.
They called on Israel to immediately release Abu Safiya and all health and care workers arbitrarily detained, saying Israel has “turned the practice of medicine into a crime” and made health workers targets of harassment, intimidation, arrest, torture and death.
Human rights groups have also raised alarm over Abu Safiya’s case. Amnesty International described the reports about his condition as “truly horrifying”, while Physicians for Human Rights Israel called for his immediate transfer, urgent medical treatment and access to a judge.
